My Pop OS installation is super laggy - any ideas?
My Pop OS installation is super laggy - any ideas?
Hey everyone,
To set a quick expectation, I'm an absolute Linux noob. I'm comfortable with running commands in CLI and can do basic stuff, but the advanced things I'll learn over time.
I installed Pop_OS on a separate nvme drive in my PC. My PC that I built also has Windows, but that's on a completely different nvme drive. The drive for Linux is dedicated just to Linux only. I chose Pop because I'm a gamer and heard it's the most approachable.
I've noticed that my Pop OS is pretty laggy and slow. When it comes to opening up any windows, opening the Pop shop, etc, it performs bad and frequently I get the "Pop Shop not responding" error on open that prevents me from using it.
Are there any tips to diagnose this or some setting that's buried in CLI that I can run? I've checked all the GUI settings and everything appears to be set correctly. I have the latest most available GPU driver, latest version of Pop, I sudo apt update/upgrade everything on there, and still it lags and is slow.
Is there a possible power management restriction that I need to override?
I'm quite lost so I appreciate the suggestions. I have 0 issues with my windows installation - all games run fine, OS is buttery smooth. I want to switch to Linux but this problem just frustrates me and I can't figure it out by searching online.
Specs:
- CPU - Intel i7 12700K
- GPU - MSI RTX 3080 Gaming Z Trio (10 GB)
- Storage - Samsung 970 M2. nvme (Linux drive), Samsung 980 M2 nvme (Windows drive)
- Memory: Corsair DDR4-3600 (XMP on, set to 3600 Mhz in Bios)
- Mainboard: MSI PRO Z690-A (latest Bios)
- Case: Corsair 5000d airflow
- CPU Cooler: Noctua D15
- Fans: Lian Li 3 front intake, 2 rear exhaust. Fan orientation is correct and speeds are set for positive pressure.
EDIT: Forgot to mention a year ago I had tried out both Ubuntu, and then Pop. I didn't really see much issues with Ubuntu. I've reinstalled Pop on multiple drives (including some standard old SSDs) and the issue persists.
That dialog appears if you click on a window that's currently busy; where busy means that the UI's event loop hasn't reported in a while; probably on account of it being actively working on something. It's common for the Shop to do this when it's fetching updates from the network.
Although it contains async glib code, all application logic is being processed on the same thread as the UI, and there's some sync code deep in there somewhere that blocks until it's finished. We'll eventually write an application store for COSMIC in Rust that'll be free of issues like this.
For the best experience with the Shop in its current form, wait for the spinning progress icon to finish before navigating the application. Opening an app page while it's fetching something may make it lock until it fetches info for that page.
Thank you, this is helpful for me to know. I ran through some maintenance on my install tonight and was able to observe this behavior in Pop Shop. It's kind of interesting and surprises me that these types of issues can arise from utilizing the app.
On a segue while I was running through maintenance, I noticed some slowdown with trying to run simple sudo commands in terminal where it could take 30 seconds before I get prompted to enter my password. I did research and noticed that the issue appears to be linked to your hostname not being present in your hosts file, so I rectified that quickly and now when I enter a sudo command, I immediately get prompted to input my password.
My observations is that Linux is a bit odd. :)
EDIT:
Now that I'm reading this on a fresh head after sleep, I got your point now Michael. I'll use the app based on your suggestion as it looks like we'll get a more performant version in Rust in the future.
Hi, i don’t know this distro, but linux. Try to install a tool like top, glances and atop highlight problems. Open a terminal run glances or atop and reproduce your issue. Glances or atop should help you.
Often, lags are caused by missing graphics driver or win managers running in a compatibility mode.
Thanks this is a great tip! I'll give this one a shot tonight to see if I can pinpoint what might be happening.
Since you have a NVIDIA GPU, check out GreenWithEnvy from Flathub.org. It can give some useful metrics for shader usage by the GPU. If you enable coolbits, it can be used to control the fan curve and overclock. The NVIDIA X Server Settings utility that comes with the NVIDIA driver can also be used to configure power profiles and clocks.